Near miss

Stephen King has been scaring us silly for 35 years with the simplest premise: What if? For instance, what if dogs could kill (Cujo)? Or clowns (It)? Or telekinetic prom queens (Carrie)? Or a '58 Plymouth Fury (Christine)? Or cell phones (The Cell)? The "what-if" behind King's haunting, horrific and ultimately transcendent new novel, Lisey's Story, is a decidedly personal one: What if I'd died after being hit by a minivan on that Maine country road in 1999?